Over the course of the next week, we're going to break down the defensive rosters of each NFC East team (Giants, Eagles, Cowboys and Redskins) position by position. The teams will be ranked 1-4, depending on their talent from top to bottom at that spot for the 2014 season.

After each position is analyzed, we'll add the totals for each team. The lowest cumulative number will have the best roster; the highest will have the worst.

Now, we'll find out who has the best defense. It should be interesting since all four NFC
East teams come in with serious doubts about their units.

It gets a little tricky with the defenses because different teams use different systems. The Eagles and Redskins employ 3-4 schemes, with outside linebackers serving as their primary pass rushers. The Giants and Cowboys run 4-3 defenses, with defensive ends as their primary pass rushers.

The way we're going to do this here is by breaking it down to defensive linemen (basically interior players), pass rushers (edge rushers, really), linebackers (inside LBs in a 3-4 and all linebackers in a 4-3), cornerbacks and safeties.

Finding someone worthy of the top spot in these linebacker rankings was difficult. This is a common theme here in these NFC East position-by-position rankings. These four teams seem to have some similar strengths, similar weaknesses – either that or they’re all just not very good top to bottom. Linebacker appears to be one of the weakest spots so far.

For me, after long deliberation, the Redskins came out on top, if only because Riley is a solid player and Robinson has potential. Still, the duo has something to prove, especially since somebody has to fill the leadership void left by London Fletcher’s retirement.

The Eagles don’t have any questions about leadership. That is why Ryans, who turns 30 later this month, in still on their roster. He’s a liability against the pass, but has a knack for making plays overall, and remains a fairly effective player.

Kendricks has shown flashes of being a good player, but still needs to put it all together. I question whether it will ever happen, even though the physical talent is certainly there.

The Giants may have ranked ahead of the Eagles if Beason didn’t injure his foot during minicamp. He’s now a question mark for Week 1, and becomes a health concern moving forward.

Behind him, the Giants don’t have a ton of depth as rookie Devon Kennard may be thrust prematurely into a starting spot on the strongside. And then there are Williams and Paysinger, who have proven over the past few years to be serviceable – but not impact – players. Overall, it’s not good enough if Beason doesn’t at least return to last year’s form. Before last month, the Giants were hoping for even better.

Still, it’s far superior to what the Cowboys have to offer since Sean Lee blew out his knee this spring and was lost for the season. Durant now moves out of position to the middle and the strongside linebacker becomes a crapshoot.

All the pressure to keep Dallas’ group above water falls on Carter. He has the talent, but struggled badly last season. The Cowboys are now counting on him to be their best linebacker. That puts them in serious trouble at the position.

When finding the safest pick of the units in this division that also has a chance to make some plays, the Eagles come out on top. Ryans is starting to get up there in age, but he is still only 29, and successfully played the most snaps of any player on the Eagles last season. Ryans has lost a step, and he can be exposed in coverage, but finishing with 127 tackles, four sacks and interceptions is an impressive output.

Kendricks has not put together all of his potential yet, but he has the talent to be a Pro-Bowler. You can't say that about many of the other linebackers in this division.

Although Beason is an injury risk, he played well enough during his time with the Giants last season to give them hope about what he can do with some time under his belt to get acclimated to the defense. Williams and McClain are nothing special, but Williams did get the quarterback out of the pocket 12 times last season, giving some hope he can turn those hurries into sacks going forward.

The Redskins come in third on this list because although Riley is a proven player, his counterpart in Robinson has just 11 career tackles. Hard to feel good about a unit that is depending on him to take such a drastic leap. If it doesn't work out with Robinson, the Redskins depth is pretty terrible.

Pulling up last in the division, as has been the case with most positions, are the Cowboys. If there is one player that has some decent upside it is Wilber, but even his ceiling is not as high as Kendricks' ceiling for the Eagles or Robinson's for the Redskins. Carter is a solid player, but the loss of Sean Lee is just too much for this team to overcome.